The way to the cats

Yolanda Moscowitz is the heroine of this remarkable novel - a seventy-six year old retired school teacher who is suddenly crippled by a fall and finds herself recuperating in a Tel Aviv home for the aged. There she is surrounded by a rich carnival of characters: the uncaring head nurse ("Satana"), a harsh disciplinarian who is Yolanda's nemesis; Leon, the oily orderly who flirts with Yolanda, hints at the possibility of a sexual liaison, and connives to get her money; Adela, the masseuse who is more interested in Yolanda's property than her body; innocent Allegra, who performs menial tasks for Yolanda and whose girlish body is diseased from within; Kagan, the Russian-born, alcoholic artist whose legs have been crushed by a bus and who romances Yolanda with French poetry; and Wolfe, the religious widower who, through rotting teeth, begs Yolanda to marry him so that he may rid himself of the prurient erotic fantasies which torment him.